CHENNAI: When Shafali Verma came on to bowl in the fifth over of the innings, Pakistan were going steady in the Women’s T20 Asia Cup match against India. Muneeba Ali and Shawaai Zulfiqar had gotten off to a decent start as the scoreboard read 27/0 in 4.2 overs.
Though it might not be a score that would have worried the Indian team, when it comes to these two teams, there is not much rivalry on the field. It was evident when India completed the chase of 56 runs with more than 10 overs to spare. The Women in Blue has always been the dominant team barring the one off upsets here and there against Pakistan. For the Fatima Sana-led team to do it all over again, they need to bat through the first half without a collapse. And it seemed like they were halfway through.
Enter Shafali. The opener, who is a partnership-breaking specialist at this point, did what she does best. Shafali played to the ego of the batter, in this case Muneeba, and cleaned her up. That was all the entry India needed.
Floodgates opened and before you knew it, Pakistan were seven down in 14 overs with just 47 runs on the board. NR Sree Charani came to the party, taking two wickets in the sixth over. She followed up with another before Prema Rawat had her share of fun. By the time Deepti Sharma came along, Sana was under pressure and fell to the offie, leaving Pakistan in dire straits.
From thereon, the rest seemed only like a formality. They were all out for 55 in 18.1 overs.
Brief scores: Pakistan 55 all out in 18 ovs (Shawaal 14; Sree Charani 3/7, Prema 3/9) lost to India 57/3 in 8.4 ovs (Harmanpreet 18; Fatima 3/17).